


Revenant

by Bee_4



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Gen, Horror, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jack Manifold-centric, Psychological Horror, Suicide, Temporary Character Death, Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), but i am tagging it out of an abundance of caution, its impermanent and not intended as one, kind of a fix-it if you squint, no beta we die like tommy :), spoilers for both tommy's 3/1 and 3/4 streams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29862657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bee_4/pseuds/Bee_4
Summary: Jack Manifold will keep the fire burning in his chest, or he will die.This proves to be a problem when Tommy has been the thing keeping him burning for so long, but thereisa solution to that, isn't there? Why not just... go back to hell, and pull Tommy out himself? What, like it could bethathard?(And hell, as always, reaches terrible hands back out for Jack.)
Relationships: Jack Manifold & TommyInnit
Comments: 24
Kudos: 199
Collections: Found family to make me feel something





	Revenant

It’s when, on the sixth day, Jack feels _guilt_ that he knows he’s in trouble.

He has to keep the fire burning in his chest. He is sitting on the floor of Tommy’s house, smoldering low. Someone’s changed out the floor, so instead of entirely being a shitty dirt house, now it’s a shitty dirt house with a checkerboard floor. Ranboo has been planting flowers. Elsewhere, they’d had a funeral for him. Probably buried the body in a proper grave and shit. This still feels like more of a grave though, right? Like Tommy will pop out of the ground at any moment, covered in clay and shitty flowers.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees ~~them~~ getting closer.

He sits in the center of Tommy’s house and he feels the fire flicker lower. Why? He feels guilty and sad and terribly, terribly alone somehow. 

Keep the fire burning. _They abandoned you._ Keep the fire burning. _They left you here._ Keep the fire burning. _They laughed at you and took away the kindling—_

Oh, who is he kidding?

 ~~They~~ get closer. He feels guilt and a knot like a boulder in his stomach.

He’s _fucked._

 ~~They~~ reach out and Jack jerks away. He has to keep the fire burning. How the hell does he keep the fire burning when the thing he’d been using to ignite it is dead and gone?

...well.

That’s an idea.

The fire ignites in his eyes. ~~They~~ disappear again, and Jack refuses to die. What did Quackity say about that train? Hell, he can’t remember. Why not just go with… no rest for the wicked?

It’s time to get to work.

* * *

The first thing he does is play some scheming music, once he’s back in Snowchester, because he burnt his usual house down, you see. Fit of anger. The realization that it didn’t actually matter. The slow dousing of a fire. That sort of thing. Not that unusual, really! Jack was pretty sure everyone on this server had burnt _something_ down at least once. It was a rite of passage.

Anyway. In Snowchester. He plays some scheming music. He can play it as loudly as he wants, because Tubbo hasn’t been in Snowchester in six days for the same reason Jack hasn’t. If he’s going to be scheming, he needs appropriate music! Now, for his scheming. Step one is…

...this is why he requires music, actually. So that when he forgets step one, he has something to jog his mind. Step one, step one is… well, there’s the easy way to do it, right? All he has to do is go step into Tubbo’s death memory machine thingy and wait for lightning to strike it a bit more and it would probably do the trick. Or he could set a timer on one of the nukes! They’re disarmed now, sure, but Jack knows how to re-arm them, and Tubbo hasn’t been keeping an eye on his keycard. That’d do it to him so badly it would take all of them. But those are the easy way to do it! Those… there are no guarantees with those.

There are no guarantees they’d be sticking, no matter how hard he meant it. There is also far too high a chance they’d be permanent, that he wouldn’t be able to ignite the fire again.

(He has to keep the fire burning. It has to stay burning in him, or—) 

So! Those are out the window. What he needs is insurance! Or, maybe, some kind of zombie ritual? Except isn’t Dream the only one with the zombie ritual? Jack may be a little stupid occasionally, but he followed the reason Dream was in prison instead of dead as well as anyone else, he’d have you know. If Dream was the only one with the zombie ritual, Jack couldn’t use that either…

Wait! That’s right! Wasn’t Philza poking around about reviving the dead at one point? Jack’s pretty sure he remembers that! 

(Jack knows he can’t forget ~~them~~ appearing, all at once, surrounding him, so close he couldn’t breathe, so close he was choking on them again. Jack knows he can’t forget the sound of the dead meddling, of ~~them~~ , reaching out, whispering to him, the fire burning in him only barely hot enough to burn them before they could reach. It was the first time _After_ that ~~they’d~~ appeared so strongly, that his unbeating heart had tried so hard to start and fail one last time.)

Jack knew that it wouldn’t actually work. But it had clearly done something! Something of the things he’d been researching had to do something! That would be good insurance, right? A halfway anchor for the halfway dead.

Excellent. He smiles to the soundtrack of a grand plan. Everything's coming together. Step one: steal Philza’s notes on revival from him and Technoblade. Step t… 

...and Technoblade.

Ah. Yes. That’s right. Technoblade. Philza Minecraft is no slouch either.

Maybe he should rethink step one?

Something flickers—

Keep the fire burning. He clenches his fist. He just has to be clever about it! And if he loses everything in the process, he still has lives to spare, and it’ll help with later steps anyway, having one fewer to burn through. Step one stays the same. Jack Manifold isn’t afraid of anything, including anarchists with a tendency to blow things up! If anything, Jack Manifold is the opposite of afraid of those things.

Step two: keeping the fire burning. He’s going to need a massive blaze for this one. He knows exactly how massive. Keep the fire burning. He can do that. He can… oh. The location. That’s it! He just has to convince Sam to let him visit Dream! That’s a perfect setting for this! For the meaning! For the pizzaz! For the drama!

For the fire that burns with hate and anger every moment that Jack looks at Dream’s smug smile, and the fire he knows will burn when Dream realizes what Jack’s doing.

Step three: make sure the deaths stick, but don’t stick too hard? He needs intent! He needs emotional weight! ...actually, the fact that he wants it should probably be enough on its own. Not that he wants to die. He absolutely cannot want to die unless he wants to die. Nice and tautological, see? He just has to die, while wanting to die, without wanting to die.

Yeah, he’s confusing himself now.

He can do confusing, though! Moving on, and not thinking too much about that rabbit hole! He’ll know it’s killed him when he knows.

Step four: he’ll figure that one out when he gets there. That one doesn’t entirely depend on _Jack_ , after all. For that, Jack can only be the conduit. Tommy’s going to have to figure it out on his own.

Step five: victory.

Jack goes back over his plan, steps one to five. There will be some additional sub-steps if the things he steals from Phil are important, and some additional steps to convince Sam, but he has a plan now! A functioning plan, a goal, a target. That’s almost as good for staying alive as spite and anger. It helps that, if this succeeds, Dream is going to realize that he is a bitch, which is always a plus.

God, he hates Dream. He has to hold onto that one now. He just hates the man, and there’s nothing else to it.

He nods at his plan, looks up, and one of ~~them~~ is watching.

He watches back for a moment. It’s the burning one. Half-melted. ~~They~~ have an arm with scars under its fingers, burnt worse than the rest, reaching up, revealing nothing but shadows and muscle and pain and a memory. Of course, out of all of ~~them~~ , it’s that one watching him.

They stare at each other for a moment. The fire is burning to high for ~~them~~ to touch him.

“Oi,” he says. “Fuck off. You weren’t my death.”

 ~~They~~ tilt their head and keep watching.

“You lot really are pricks,” Jack mutters, and ignores the way all the shadows in the room turn to look at him. He has a plan, and he has a fire, and ~~they~~ cannot touch him yet.

He brushes past the melted shadow and ignores the shudder that goes through him as he marches out the door.

He doesn’t remember to turn off his scheming music.

~~You will come with us eventually.~~

“No, I really don’t think I will,” hisses Jack, and he goes to prepare for a heist. Initiating step one of the plan. Step one of the plan, and obsession, and fire (and hands reaching for him the entire way down the path to get supplies).

* * *

He has no idea where Techno and Phil live, actually.

Jack stands in the nether hub, looking out over the various obsidian and wood and cobblestone and netherrack paths. It can’t be that far away, right? They came to the SMP proper often enough that they couldn’t be _that_ far away. Plus, Tommy had lived there after exile, and…

Oh, wait! Jack has had an idea. He visited Tommy in exile! Tommy had _killed him_ here during that visit, and he’d lost all of his things and he’d felt the second life crack in the middle of his chest and he’d felt the betrayal and pain and anger and anger and _fire_ and _guilt_ and, wait, no, not that last one. That one’s still new. Shit. The point is that he’d still thought he could try to be friends with Tommy then. The point is that he’d seen _Tommy’s_ nether portal. And like, if Tommy ran to Technoblade, then Technoblade’s nether portal couldn’t be that far from Tommy’s!

His skin burns and he feels melting.

Right. He’s good with fire and shit. That’s like, one of his things now. He’s always burning, inside. Going over near Tommy’s portal? Not an issue! Not an issue _whatsoever._

Besides, it’s harder for things to watch him from the shadows in the nether. It’s too bright and hot and shit for that, and the nether hub is out right over a lake, so there’s nothing hidden to stand on. Things have to watch him from the open instead. Jack greatly prefers things to watch him from the open.

What’s the next closest portal to Tommy’s, then?

He stumbles out into the snow, a thin line of torches reaching towards a beacon in the distance. It’s storming here. He pulls his Snowchester coat tighter around himself. He’s not sure why he’s wearing it. Probably grabbed it while scheming, actually. That would make sense, he reckons. It protects him somewhat against the snowstorm. His heart might be eternally burning, or at least burning as long as he wants to stick around, but it’s not really the kind of fire that keeps him warm.

Right. Right. Get in. Steal whatever notes on necromancy Philza Minecraft has on hand. Get out. It’s a foolproof plan, only hampered by the fact that Jack, as usual, has absolutely no things, and therefore had no invisibility potions, serious armor, or means to protect himself at all should Technoblade and Philza actually be there to catch him.

He’ll just bury himself in a snowdrift if they’re around. No way they’ll see him then. The blizzard’s certainly bad enough for that.

He follows the beacon and the torches until he sees a cabin sitting on the tundra. The lights are off. No one is home. Good, good! Everything is coming up Jack Manifold today, boys! Before he can… not lose his nerve, because he’s not _afraid_ or anything. Jack Manifold fears no man or anarchist pig. Before… they get back! Yes, exactly. Before that obviously terrible thing happens, Jack hoists himself up onto the bridge between the two connected houses and looks between them.

Now, if he were a set of notes on the art of reviving the dead, where would he be?

Twenty minutes later and a lot of frustrated scrambling while a polar bear stares at him like it would very much like to eat him, he realizes he’s in the wrong half of this double-house thingy. He would have figured it out sooner, given the Technoblade posters everywhere, but in his defense, he was trying very hard not to get eaten by a polar bear. Eaten by a polar bear would be a cool way to go, but he hadn’t set his respawn point anywhere nearby, and also it would be messy and totally give away that he’d been there. The point is that trying not to get eaten by a polar bear means that hunting down the secret necromancy notes is harder than it should be, and what kind of person keeps a polar bear tied up in their house?

The other connected house does seem a lot more Philza Minecraft, for whatever degree Jack actually knew shit about Philza. It’s more organized, and it’s prettier. There’s fewer chests just, everywhere. There’s a wither rose on the table, and a collection of papers and books, clearly discarded before Philza went wherever he’d been going.

Jack looks through them, obviously. Because he’s here to steal. Whatever the notes are, it’s not like he’s just going to respect the privacy of them.

Most of them are really boring shit, so it makes sense Philza would just ditch them, Jack guesses. A few seem to be super failed attempts at reviving Wilbur specifically. Given that Tommy doesn’t have a ghost yet (and Jack’s sort of counting on that), those probably won’t be useful to him… oh, hey, a book about the undead!

Jack picks it up and flips through it. Philza has marked most of the pages as useless. He wants to bring his son back to _life,_ after all.

Jack is not quite so discerning. He, after all, knows better than to assume he’s alive.

He doesn’t need too much. He’s a little transfixed, honestly. The skeleton and zombie stuff is mostly useless, but the things about spirits, and undead that are a bit more than just zombies? That stuff is fascinating. Jack’s pretty sure, for example, that he’s not a lich, but the idea that someone could make themselves into that is as terrifying as it is wonderful. The things about Totems of Undying this book has in it… they’re the only things Philza has marked as useful, and Jack can see why. The book outlines side-effects. The book outlines sacrifice.

One of these pages, Jack thinks, has to have enough to get him a proper safety net here. One of these pages of rotting corpses walking or spirits given shape has to have _something._ A name, ideally. (A name for him, specifically. He already knows ~~theirs~~ , even if they haven’t said it. He knows it as bone deep as he knows his fire.)

He flips through the pages and stops. He looks at the image, and the words, and they don’t compute, exactly. He hasn’t thought about this too hard yet, you know? What he is. What he will be. The fire in his chest of purpose and pain—

“Hey! What… are you doing here? _Jack?”_

Jack whips around, and Ranboo is standing there. His eyes almost glow. Jack hadn’t really noticed it before. It makes sense, since Ranboo is an enderman and all, but the glow to them. And how tall he is, too. Jack isn’t short or anything, but Ranboo’s just _tall_ as he stands over Jack, hands still on the book he’d grabbed.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Jack says.

“Are you _stealing?_ From _Phil?”_ says Ranboo, incredulous.

“...maybe it is what it looks like,” Jack admits.

“Why?” says Ranboo. “What are you doing here? Why are you stealing books? Just go home, Jack, you aren’t supposed to know where this is.”

“Hey! I have as much of a right to this as Philza Minecraft does!” Jack says, chest swelling up. 

“Just as much of—Jack, that book isn’t yours!”

“Well he left it here.”

“Go get it from somewhere else, then!”

“Who else is supposed to have books on necromancy, huh?”

Silence. Ranboo looks down at him, and Jack can’t read Ranboo’s expression at all. Shit. Shit. Shit. Jack has no idea why Ranboo’s here, but clearly, Ranboo didn’t want to let Jack steal. So much for Snowchester loyalty, right? Even if Ranboo wasn’t technically a part of Snowchester or anything. He has nothing in his inventory to fight Ranboo with either, nothing he can pull on hand. He prepares to run or die.

“...necromancy?” Ranboo asks, his voice strangely flat.

“What’s it to you?” Jack asks.

Ranboo stares at Jack for a bit longer. Jack doesn’t think he can move. He absolutely hates this. It’s probably an enderman thing, right? Being stared at by an enderman is like, the sign they’re about to bite your head off the moment you look the other direction.

“...you bring that back in one piece before Phil notices,” Ranboo says, and Jack chokes.

“Excuse me?”

“He didn’t hide that one, so you might have a day or two before Phil catches on.” Ranboo looks away again, and Jack feels strangely relieved. “If you don’t bring the book back or if Phil notices I’m not going to cover for you. And if you aren’t using that for the reason you are?” Ranboo laughs, and it’s low, and it sounds like it should be crying. “Well. I definitely won’t cover for you then, do you understand?”

And then, behind Ranboo, Jack sees one of ~~them~~ . Ranboo doesn’t notice. No one else ever does. ~~They~~ watch them both with empty eyes and a hole in the center of ~~their~~ chest. It’s a taunt. It’s a promise. It’s a warning.

“I understand, Ranboo.”

“Go,” Ranboo says. “Don’t get caught.”

“No promises,” Jack says.

“ _Go,”_ Ranboo says.

Jack takes the book and scrambles out of Philza Minecraft’s house, back out into the blizzard, and only then thinks to wonder how the Enderman got here through the snow. No time to wonder. No time to question it. Only time to follow the trail of torches back to the portal, the snow covering his footsteps as he goes. He can swear he hears the polar bear growl at him as he passes.

He can swear the storm gets worse and worse as he gets closer to the portal. He can swear the storm is preparing to kill him.

He can swear he sees eyes in the snowflakes.

He shoves himself back through the nether portal, and the eyes are gone, and he has a book on necromancy. Hahaha! It’s not Philza’s full notes on revival, but it’ll do. It’s more than he had before. It’s more than he thought he’d ever have on this. Step one, complete! The Manifold Plan is well underway!

Well underway.

Hah.

He needs to read the book more properly, and then move onto step two.

* * *

He’s reading the book, still sort of in a between-step, you know? He’s not quite on step two yet, but he isn’t really doing step one. There are sigils drawn around him and theories on post-it notes. He’s sitting in his house in Snowchester. He has the music off. He’s open to the pages he thinks he needs. He’s going to need a vial of blood to really make sure of this. Gross. Fuck Dream, really, for making him hunt down a vial of blood.

He also messaged someone earlier. There’s one person he needs to talk to before he goes through with this. It’s vital to keep him burning. (It’s vital to keep him from drowning in the guilt when he thinks for too long.) He really should have written it down as a step, but it felt wrong to write it down, somehow. He just needs to do this before he talks to Sam, and before Ranboo can say anything.

He hears a knock.

“Jack?”

“Tubbo?” says Jack, and he slams shut the book so that the undead on the page don’t look out at Tubbo when he walks in. Jack can’t do that to him. Jack can’t do that to Tubbo. Jack can’t do _this._ The message was a mistake.

“J- Jack?” says Tubbo. 

“Come in,” Jack says, and Tubbo goes through the door quietly. He sits next to Jack after a moment.

“You’re doing something stupid,” Tubbo says.

“Probably,” Jack says.

“I know satanic rituals when I see them,” Tubbo says.

“I mean, not exactly?” Jack says. He winces. He clearly hadn’t hidden what he’d been doing quite well enough. So much for deciding he couldn’t do this.

“I wanted to ban those, but they’re sort of fun,” Tubbo says, and Jack snorts.

“Yeah.” 

“...hey Jack?” says Tubbo, and he scoots closer to Jack’s side.

“Yes, Tubbo?”

Tubbo looks Jack in the eyes, and something burns in the middle of Jack’s chest. It is not the fire that he must keep always burning, but another fire, one that keeps the first fire in check. That, of course, makes no sense at all, but Jack figures that emotions don’t make much sense and that the fire is all a metaphor, so it doesn’t have to make sense. Metaphors are real stupid. So are feelings, and so are cold flickering flames and starbursts of rage. The important bit is that this second fire. It’s doing its job to keep Jack here with the first. 

“Don’t die too.”

“I promise,” Jack says, “that you can’t keep me down.”

The cold fire and the blazing one burn in harmony. The cold fire says: this is your friend, and you care about him, and he is hurting, and he should not be. The blazing fire says: Dream did this to him, this server did this to him, everyone did this to him, and they should pay. No shadows and none of the things that haunt him are there for a moment. Jack hears Tubbo start to cry.

His resolve burns next to his rage, and as Tubbo cries, Jack lets him.

“...I’m real sorry, Tubbo,” Jack says, and it’s not enough at all. It doesn’t have to be, though. It is the seventh time Jack has said it this week, and he thinks he will probably say it many more times, regardless of whether he succeeds. He’s not sure he can say it enough. For once, though, guilt isn’t dousing the flames. It’s sparking them higher, and higher, and higher still.

“I know. Do your best, okay?”

They don’t move for a while, but then Tubbo has to go back to his detective work, and Jack has to go back to his rituals. They both know this. 

...Jack hopes that Tubbo knows he meant that promise. Jack’s not sure he could live with himself or live anymore at all if Tubbo thought…

(Maybe he should talk to Niki, too, but Jack can’t bring himself to do it. It’s too risky, that the guilt will eat away at the fire until he can’t work up a proper rage, if he talks to her. He doesn’t know if she’d understand the person Jack is choosing, anyway. So Tubbo alone will have to do, for now. This will have to be enough.)

* * *

He does eventually finish the book. Naturally. As though there would be any doubt, really, that he could finish the book. He doesn’t finish with the pages, exactly, but he paints blood onto his arms that isn’t for him before he picks up his communicator and winces.

This won’t be an easy argument.

The first answer he gets from Sam is “no”. The second answer he gets from Sam is also “no”. So is the third, fourth, fifth…

Jack needs a new tactic. He can’t just tell Sam! It’s bad enough that Ranboo and Tubbo both definitely know in their own ways. It’s not like Jack wants it getting around that he’s undead or anything.

Well, he sort of does. Want it getting around. It would be nicer than the fact that no one but him seems to notice that he shouldn’t be alive anymore. If it started getting around because people like, noticed that he’d died in the first place, it would be nice. But, well, whatever. Since no one seems to really get it anyway, Jack figures he shouldn’t rock the boat too much. People would be _weird_ about it.

It doesn’t help that he doesn’t want anyone’s blessing. Tubbo’s blessing is all he wanted. He’d gotten Ranboo’s too, by accident, and Jack doesn’t really feel one way or the other about Ranboo. But everyone else? Yeah, they can fuck right off. They hadn’t done jack shit for Jack, ever! He’s not about to let them be all like “oh, Jack Manifold, you’re so cool” over this of all things. They would think he’s cool for reasons that didn’t make them assholes, thank you, and for no other reason at all!

The fire sparks brighter.

He messages Sam.

He says no.

“Sam. Sam, Sam, Sam,” Jack says. “He has to let us visit sometime, right? Has to let us yell at the man. I want to do it in front of him for a reason, you know. Dream. I mean, I guess I will be doing it in front of Sam too? But it’s Dream who I want to hear me for certain. After all, Dream is the enemy.”

Out the window, he sees ~~them~~ . ~~They’re~~ just watching him, right now. ~~They~~ aren’t trying to reach for him. ~~They~~ aren’t. ~~They~~ can’t, right? Not through the window. ~~They~~ aren’t. The hands simply cannot go through glass.

He covers his head for a moment and breathes, even though he doesn’t exactly need to, and he feels fingers brush against his skin.

He jerks up. Nothing is there. ~~They~~ are still out the window, and not inside, as long as he remains bold enough to look them in the eyes.

He has to do this soon. The fire is burning. He doesn’t know how long he has to try this, even after reading the book, and he’s… he’s so, so fucked if he gets in his head that this won’t work. Which it will! It will work. But if he waits too long, thinks too long about it...

Sam says “why”.

Jack grins, wicked and wide. Persistence wins the day, now doesn’t it? He’d prepared his excuse, too—as someone Dream couldn’t give a shit about, Dream might be more willing to let things slip to Jack. After all, it’s not like the two of them actually talked much, besides that one time Dream tried to get him to spy on L’Manburg, back before elections or Schlatt or ghosts or exile or Technoblade or _After_ or them. Frankly, by now, they may as well all be in an entirely new universe. As someone who wasn’t really friends with Tommy, Dream was less likely to be careful. He might let something slip. Heck, Jack went ahead and implied that he wanted to see Dream to yell at him a bit, too.

None of these are true, of course. Jack doesn’t care if Dream lets anything slip about how Tommy died or whatever. That’s all Tubbo and Ranboo’s job. Jack cares about the one thing he’s cared about the most since _After_ , and that’s petty, petty revenge with a side of showmanship.

The setting has to be right this time. Jack isn’t going to hell again ignobly. He’s going to do it with style, because he _can._

(Because he won’t be a forgotten body at the bottom of a pit this time around.)

He feels a hand brush against him again and he jerks away as one of ~~them~~ tries to grab his wrist.

He won’t. He won’t. Because it wasn’t fucking _fair._ How’s that for kindling. How’s that for a lack of peaceful rest, huh? _Huh?_

 ~~They’re~~ still all out the window. Not in here.

He’s starting to lose it a bit.

Sam says “no”, but he’d asked why. Jack knows he has him.

Sam says “yes” forty-five minutes later, and Jack packs his things, even though he knows he can’t actually take them into the prison with him. He packs what little of importance he owns into an ender chest, so he can’t lose it, and he shoves a note on Tubbo’s door asking for his trident back. He contemplates talking to Niki one more time. He does not.

He walks towards Pandora’s Vault with no intent of leaving it the same, but that’s the whole point of the box, right? Things in it don’t leave the same? Jack doesn’t know shit about mythology, but that sounds like it could be right, or whatever.

Jack should change, and so should Dream.

He has to push through ~~them~~ in order to march to the prison entrance. ~~They~~ move aside silently. ~~They~~ stand in his way, but they do not try to grab him, and ~~they~~ do not try to stop him.

Jack supposes that makes sense, given that he’s planning to die. ~~They~~ wouldn’t stop him from doing that.

(He’s just not planning on it sticking.)

He’s silent as he follows Sam through the prison protocols. He politely ignores Sam’s hands shaking. He doesn’t ignore himself. As Jack walks across lava bridges and through tunnels of water, he’s quiet, but he feels himself blazing. This is the last thing Tommy saw before that stupid cell with Dream, right? What a Rube Goldberg machine of a way to die. Stupid. If Jack had been the one killing Tommy, he wouldn’t have done it somewhere no one could see, at the end of a black tunnel no one was down.

If Jack had gotten to kill Tommy, there would have at least been explosions. Technically there were explosions, but the explosions weren’t the proper kind. They should have been fireworks, or nukes, or impossible to ignore.

And it shouldn’t have been Dream.

Enemies killing enemies may be useful, but it’s not satisfying, and besides, Tommy’s not an enemy anymore, now is he? He wasn’t even ever really an enemy, actually. He was the closest thing to a fucking best friend Jack had for a long time there.

He's Tubbo’s best friend (Tubbo, who alternates between quiet sadness and a refusal to accept).

Dream, though—Dream’s still an enemy. Dream is just generally a terrible person, but this, this really takes the cake, doesn’t it? Killing Tommy in a tiny box where no one could watch.

Jack feels his hands shaking. He’s apprehensive. He’s pissed off beyond belief. Good. The pissed off is what he needs. The pissed off is why he came here.

Sam goes to pull a lever. Sam hesitates. “Be careful,” he says. “Call my name the _moment_ Dream does anything strange at all. Anything even a little bit suspicious, you need to tell me, okay? It doesn’t matter how much you think it doesn’t matter. I’m not letting you stay there too long, even if you think you can get information, alright?”

“‘Course,” says Jack. “Not like I’m gonna let the bastard get away with much.”

“Okay,” says Sam. “Okay.”

The lava lowers, and there across it is Dream. Jack gets on the platform. He is quiet. Sam is quiet. Dream is quiet.

And the lava falls to hide them again, and Dream tilts his head. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“Eh, I’m mostly here so you can see me when I beat you,” Jack says back. Dream laughs. The prick. The fucking asshole. He’s already laughing at Jack.

“Beat me? Jack, I’m already in prison. How much more can you beat me until I get out? And don’t say you’re going to _kill me._ If Sam thought you were going to do that, he wouldn’t have let you in.”

Jack remember’s Sam’s shaking hands.

“I’m not really so sure about that one, Dream,” Jack says.

“Think what you want,” Dream says back. “I can’t imagine you would kill me here. You’d be the only suspect! Then again, everyone would know, wouldn’t they?” And… fucker. The absolute asshole. Jack fucking hates him. “Oh, that’s it! You’re going to kill me, and then everyone will know your name. No more forgetting about you, isn’t that right?”

“You’re an absolute prick, did you know that?”

“Hahaha, don’t say it like that. I mean, I’ve barely done anything to you myself. Sure, I’ve blown some things up, caused some problems for you, but it’s not like _you_ ever actually cared about ‘L’Manburg’ or whatever.” Jack despises the way Dream moves like he’s in total control even when Dream is weaponless and weak in an obsidian box, on one life while Jack has three. Jack despises the way Dream talks like he fucking knows Jack, when Dream’s ignored Jack as much as anyone else has. Jack despises, and despises, and he feels it building, a towering bonfire in his heart, so bright that any of ~~them~~ who had been watching before cannot bear to even be in the same room as him any longer.

“I am rather pissed you killed Tommy before I could,” Jack says, instead of any of the other bits of the burning pyre in his heart. Dream laughs with delight.

“Oh, is that it? Hah, you should be grateful, then! He’s too dumb to get killed in a _normal_ way. No, he has to get killed when he should expect it most, and all. That’s why I’m the only one who’s done it!” This prick’s too happy, too carefully delighted. Also, this prick’s wrong. Jack Manifold can kill whoever the hell he wants whenever he wants. The only reason Tommy hadn’t died yet was, obviously, that Jack subconsciously knew he didn’t want to.

...well. ‘Hadn’t died yet.’ That wasn’t quite accurate anymore. Whatever. The point stays the same.

“He kept on taking everything from me,” says Jack.

“Oh, he does that,” agrees Dream.

...what had Jack wanted to get out of this, anyway? Anger, yes, but was there anything else?

Right. Satisfaction.

“But the thing is Dream, that really hating someone is sort of like caring about them, I figure. So I sort of care about Tommy. And, Dream, that means I’m not a big fan of the fact he’s dead.” He looks at Dream sharply.

“I can do something about that, you know,” Dream says, with the lilting voice of someone who really and truly thinks they have one over on someone.

“Really?”

“Oh yes,” Dream says. “Honestly, I’m surprised to think it took one of you this long to remember.” Jack is silent. “So, what are you here to negotiate?”

“I’m not negotiating,” says Jack, and Dream snorts.

“Oh, please. Why else are you here talking about how you don’t actually want Tommy dead?”

Jack grins.

“Mostly just to fuck with you.”

Before Dream can react, Jack throws himself backwards into the lava. For a moment, it is quiet, and then it’s blinding pain and a burning burning burning burning— 

**[JackManifoldTV tried to swim in lava.]**

Something cracks. Jack hears comforting voices and terrible calls for his name. Two left. One down. He respawns.

“Jack? You’re—did you just respawn?” says Sam, and right, he’s there too. Jack throws himself off the bed before Sam can get to him to check on him and, shrugging, throws himself forward.

It hurts just as much the second time, but hey, that’s sort of the point of dying— 

**[JackManifoldTV tried to swim in lava.]**

Something cracks. The voices get louder. He feels hands brushing against his body, he feels one of ~~them~~ kiss the back of his neck as though it’s comforting. It’s not. The fire grows into more of an inferno but with one life left he’s easier to hold, easier for them to get to, he sees flickers of ~~their~~ faces and there are new ones now. He does not think about ~~them~~ too hard. He will have to face ~~them~~ properly soon enough.

“What are you doing?” says Sam, and he lunges to grab Jack before Jack can do the obvious thing. He has his sword drawn on instinct, but Sam’s holding it so that he could only really hit Jack with the pommel. He’s trying so hard to stop him.

Too bad Jack is really, really good at dying.

Third time’s the charm.

**[JackManifoldTV tried to swim in lava.]**

He respawns. Nothing cracks and the hands are still touching him and the shadows in the prison bend and reach towards him and he sees it out of the corner of his eye, it is there, the Void, but he didn’t reach it. Why the fuck didn’t that count as a life? You’d think _killing yourself_ would have enough emotional weight to count as a life every time around.

“Stop!” says Sam, and the fire is burning, and he sees it, and he sees ~~them~~ , and he hears that Sam’s distressed but it doesn’t matter. Jack steps forward again. Sam grabs his wrist, tightly. “What are you doing? Stop. Stop, why do you keep on throwing yourself—what did Dream _do_ to you? I shouldn’t have—Jack, we’re leaving, come on. I’ll take you outside again. I shouldn’t have let you…”

“Let me go,” Jack says, and it sounds like it’s coming from a tunnel in another state.

“So you can throw yourself into lava again?” says Sam, incredulously.

“Yes,” says Jack, and ~~they~~ are holding him too, so it’s not all Jack that pulls himself mechanically out of Sam’s hold, and it is so close, the Void, it is calling his name. ~~They~~ are calling for him. ~~They~~ are calling.

 ~~They~~ want him home.

 ~~They~~ want him where he should have been two months ago, abandoned at the bottom of a crater, no one the wiser. 

He doesn’t so much jump as stumble forwards into the lava.

**[JackManifoldTV tried to swim in lava.]**

Still, it’s not enough. He respawns. He screams. He’s going. He’s so close. He’s so close. Why isn’t it counting? Why isn’t this canon when the other two were? Is he not allowed to just do the same thing three times? Is the world realizing that he doesn’t care? Is the repetition not meaningful enough, is it not changing who he is enough? (But he does. He does so deeply. He needs this, needs it, needs it, the fire burns high and higher and higher and he must keep the flame going no matter how badly he thinks he needs this he thinks he needs to go and all the walls are watching him and all the dead are calling him and the fire, the fire, the fire—)

He has another option, of course. It doesn’t just have to be _him_ that the death means something to.

Sam is stumbling over to him again. “It should work soon,” Jack says, and his voice sounds all wrong. It sounds like the sound of ~~them~~. It sounds like the sound a shadow makes. Sam freezes. “It’s all part of the plan.”

“What plan?” Sam says.

“The plan to get Dream out,” Jack lies, and he watches Sam go even stiffer.

“What?” whispers Sam.

“It’ll work soon enough.” It has to work soon enough. It has to. It has to.

“I don’t believe you,” says Sam. “I saw you come in. I saw how you reacted when you found out. Jack, you aren’t that good of an actor. Please. Just tell me what’s wrong. Just tell me—”

Jack sighs. It sounds like a breeze or the end of the road. He’s not sure which one. ~~They’re~~ saying his name like a mantra, now. ~~They~~ are reaching for him, and ~~they~~ have grabbed him, and Jack knows he will not escape ~~them~~ now, but that is fine, because he has a plan for later. He walks up next to Sam. Sam is still holding his sword, prepared in case Jack isn’t actually lying, like a good warden. Good.

Jack grabs Sam’s wrist.

“Honestly, do I have to do everything myself around here?”

He yanks the sword hand up and through his throat and as he bleeds out and Sam makes a sound like screaming and the whole world is screaming and everything is bloody and screaming and ~~their~~ hands clench around his mouth and Jack stumbles backwards, aims his stumble back, pitches towards the lava, and he starts falling, falling, falling, falling— 

He’d forgotten how terrible it is to fall, but that isn’t something he can focus on now, isn’t something he can get distracted by.

The world goes sepia.

The world goes black and white.

Then, the world simply goes black.

* * *

 **YOU DIED!** **  
****JackManifoldTV tried to swim in lava to escape awesamdude.** **  
****SCORE:** ~~**You know full well by now that the score doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you do with your time, does it Jack? After all, we always get to you in the end.** ~~

* * *

He’s still falling, even after he lands.

The afterlife isn’t supposed to make sense. The ground (which he is still falling through even as he stands on it) is wet. He does not want to figure out with what. Here, everything is a shade of voided black, and whatever the liquid is that comes up to his knees, Jack has no way of telling. Some days as he screams at night, he remembers it as blood. Some days as he screams, he remembers it as water. What he really thinks it is, though—he’s not sure. Memories, probably (that he falls through, that the world falls through, the whole world is falling), because the Styx isn’t the sort of place that would be made out of something as mundane as water or mundane as blood.

He ignores the vertigo. He will be falling the whole time is here. He will never stop falling through the dark. He has never stopped falling through the dark, even when he’d gotten out of here the first time.

He has to move.

He puts one foot in front of the other. His legs drag through the water. He is still falling. Every minute, he feels like he is falling apart as well. But he has a goal. He has a _goal._ And he has a fire.

It lights in his chest, two fires, next to each other. One: Tubbo, who he promised to come back to. Two: Dream, laughing in his face at the mere idea that Jack could get a win. They curl in his chest and he drags his legs through the water.

And then, the hands.

 ~~They~~ are here. No fire keeps ~~them~~ away here. A thousand hands, grabbing at his ankles his chest his body his everything and they claw and they keep him there and they try to drag him under, try to drag him down. He shoves past ~~them~~ . ~~Their~~ faces are familiar. He’s been here before. He knows what he’s about to see. Still, looking up and seeing Quackity missing half a head, teeth and brains and eye leaking out of one side of his face, reaching at him— 

“Fuck off!” snarls Jack, tossing ~~them~~ down as another one he doesn’t look at grabs at his back and suddenly it’s not just the liquid he’s wading through anymore, but people, too, in the sea of memories.

Former people, at least.

He yanks his leg out of the grip of someone he can’t see as one of ~~them~~ hangs on his leg, and he goes on. He can’t check on the people already sunken beneath. He knows, instinctively, he can’t sink beneath the water, and he cannot let himself get cold. He has to hold onto the fire.

Keep the fire burning. Keep the fire—Dream, a crossbow bolt through his throat and a smile painted in blood—Karl, half blown to pieces—Fundy, a sword wound from a netherite sword— 

Come on, how far can he be? Jack knows he can’t stay here long. How fucking far does he have to get through this place for fucking TommyInnit, huh?

The liquid is getting higher.

He’s falling, and ~~they’re~~ trying to drag him under, and it’s vast and black and everything is dark and there’s no color and the only sound is the louder and louder calls of his name, the louder whispers, the promises of a calm and the hisses of anger and the fact that ~~he is not meant to escape here, and he knows that as well as anyone, doesn’t he?~~

“Shut the hell up, assholes!” says Jack. He feels his undead heart leap, leap, leap as he feels hands _drag_ , and ~~they~~ claw across his skin and ~~they~~ feel nothing but cold and dead. 

He sees no horizon. He sees nothing but the Void if he looks into the distance. That’s the contradiction here. He knows he’s falling. He knows he’s in the water. He knows that ~~they~~ are trying to drag him under. He knows that everything is black, and he cannot see. He knows he can see ~~their~~ faces, and ~~they~~ are the faces of people he knows. It doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t. The wind is howling.

He flinches back and then steels himself and shoves aside—well, it’s really more _half_ of Tubbo, after the firework, even as Jack feels the blood and Tubbo’s soft tie beneath his fingers. He doesn’t want to see this. He yanks them off of him before this… not-Tubbo... can drag him under all the same.

What he sees next isn’t much better.

He sees them in front of him.

His own Deaths.

“Fuck off,” he says, blazing. “Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off.” He doesn’t need to see Death now, thank you. He sees them enough when he’s _not_ in the afterlife.

...the lava was a bad idea, he thinks, though, nauseous. Now there isn’t just one melted Jack that will follow him when he slips up or forgets himself for too long. There are three now, melted and burnt and twisted in new, wonderful ways. Charcoal black hands. One’s head melted first. Another one has a totally destroyed and burnt leg. ~~They~~ wear his face. No, that is him. Those are him. Those are him those are him those are—

“You were _not the fucking death of me!”_ he howls.

 ~~They~~ don’t listen, because Death doesn’t listen to people like Jack, but he doesn’t care. No one listens to people like Jack Manifold. He’ll show them all, though. He’ll always show them all. Even himself. 

He shoves himself over and watches him get impaled on Wilbur’s sword, again and again and again and suddenly ~~they’re~~ everywhere ~~they’re~~ everywhere fuck fuck fuck he can’t handle this, he can’t handle his own blackened bones, he can’t, ~~they~~ reach up from beneath the liquid and he’s falling and ~~they’ll~~ catch him, he’s falling and ~~they’ll~~ catch him and sure ~~they’ll~~ drag him down but then maybe he’ll stop falling, stop falling, stop dying, _stop dying,_ you aren’t supposed to live after dying— 

_—keep the goddamn fire burning!_

He can’t die here. Not when no one fucking knows who he is. He’s not going to fucking die here, do you understand? (The fire blazes higher.)

And then he sees him.

He shoves through more bodies and falling and liquid and there, still floating near the surface, eyes closed, is TommyInnit, shaking.

The world narrows to a single point. The Void is infinite, but Jack tries to focus on the one place.

“TOMMY!” he shouts. “TOMMY, JUST—WAKE UP, TOMMY! HEY!”

Tommy doesn’t stir. Of course it’s not that easy. Jack pushes forward and grabs Tommy’s shoulders.

Hands reach up from the liquid to grab them. Jack kicks as hard he can manage. “WAKE UP, TOMMY!” He shakes Tommy’s shoulders, hard.

(There are four pairs of hands yanking at Tommy. Maybe that should have been the first sign there was something more wrong.)

He shakes Tommy again. He probably should have read Philza’s books more, but the blood he’s painted on himself (that is dripping down him that is on the bodies that keep on trying to pull him under that is meant to hold Death) is supposed to be enough to at least, at least kick-start this. “Come ON, Tommy! You aren’t the kind of person to just DIE LIKE THIS!”

And Tommy, eyes still screwed shut, says, quietly: “Please, not again.”

...the fire flickers low for a moment. What?

“Tommy?”

“Not again,” mumbles Tommy. “Please, Dream, don’t…”

Jack almost doesn’t notice the hands nearly pulling him far enough under to drown him as he tries to work through the implications. Something is wrong here. Something is very wrong here.

Jack breathes in liquid that tastes like nothing and tastes like death and tastes like home and he yanks himself up even as he keeps falling and he screams.

He shakes Tommy again. There are so many of ~~them~~ . Jack’s got six of his own. Tommy’s got—why does he have five? Why does he have _five?_

Something clicks in Jack’s head.

“It’s me, Tommy,” he says, and he feels the fire get hotter, and brighter. “Listen, it’s Jack Manifold, and I need you to wake up, got it? It’s gonna super suck, but I need you to.”

Tommy makes a muffled noise and then, slowly, his eyes blink open. Jack watches as they adjust to the darkness-not-the-dark, and then there are hands and Jack is elbowing Death again in the side, ignoring the way his elbow sinks into his own exposed rib cage. If he focuses too long on the feeling of his own burnt flesh beneath his feet and elbows he’ll fucking lose it, and then he’s screwed.

Besides, Tommy’s still got his past lives holding him down.

The fuckers.

“What?” says Tommy, and then Tommy lets out a terrified keen and tries to yank his way up. Jack grabs him and yanks him to his feet. “I’m still fucking falling. Why am I—I’m still falling. I’m just always falling. It’s so quiet here.” One of ~~them~~ reaches up to cover Tommy’s mouth again, another to cover his ears. Jack rips himself through the hands to pull ~~them~~ off of Tommy. He makes the mistake of looking at what remains of one of ~~their~~ faces.

Well. Tommy with his skull caved in is not a happy image.

Tommy falls back down, eyes screwed shut. “I just want to rest, man,” Tommy says. “Just let me be. I can’t—oh, oh I really can’t keep doing this. I just… Wilbur, Wilbur, and…”

“You’re disappointing, man,” Jack says, and he feels guilt and hurt.

The fire flickers lower.

No. Keep the fire burning. Think. Think. _Think._ There’s something further wrong here. What can he do to keep the flames lit? What kind of kindling does he _have?_ This part is up to Tommy, but think Jack, think, how does he get Tommy into the state that Jack was in once?

“...why did you die, Tommy?”

“I don’t know,” Tommy says, quietly. “No, Wilbur, stop it, it’s… it’s fine.”

“Tommy, why did you die?” Jack asks again. The water is still rising. Jack flinches back when he sees the arrow buried into the back of Tommy’s mouth, through his skull, on the one of ~~them~~ that tries to gently draw Tommy back under the water.

“I, I don’t know, please, I can’t just… I can’t just keep doing this. Why do you make me keep on doing this?”

“Tommy, why did you die?” There’s urgency in Jack’s voice now. The problem is that Tommy has to figure this one out on his own. Jack’s done everything he can. If Tommy doesn’t figure it out, Jack can’t solve that. If Tommy doesn’t figure it out, Jack will be leaving empty-handed. Ugh. Imagine the smug look on Dream’s face if he leaves empty-handed. (Imagine the devastated one on Tubbo’s.) He’s worried, though. This is Tommy. Tommy isn’t supposed to be this listless. He picks up a fist and punches one of ~~them~~ in the face and tries very hard not to look at the gaping slit throat, at the fact that he can see the back of his own neck through the front of it. (Thanks, Technoblade.)

“I don’t—stop asking that!”

“Not gonna. Tommy, why did you die?”

“Dream wanted to prove a fucking point!” Jack breathes out. He tries to lift Tommy’s body from the liquid again, but he can’t quite pry Tommy from ~~them~~ on his own. 

Tommy can do it though.

“Why did you die?”

“He was—no, fuck off, he was using me to—what the shit? He was using me to prove a point! He was—to prove a point! He was trying to—”

Something starts burning.

“Tommy, why did you die?”

“He kept, he was using me! He just kept on, he kept on—he wanted to—what the shit? I hate this! I hate it!” Jack smiles.

“Tommy—”

“Shut up! Shut up, you, you fucking asshole! He was—he kept on using me. He wanted to show me he could—what the shit! That’s not… that’s not fair! This isn’t fair!” Jack starts pulling the bodies away from Tommy harder. The liquid rises, or maybe they’re just sinking further. Jack’s going to have to start treading to keep the two of them somewhere they can breathe at this rate. Tommy’s on a clock here. But there’s not much else Jack can do at this point.

“No, it’s not fair, is it?”

“They—he just _kept killing me!”_ roars Tommy, and the roar sparks the fire in Jack too.

“That’s fucked up,” says Jack.

“Hell yeah it’s fucked up! It’s—Jack, you wouldn’t believe—Dream. Dream did this to me. Dream. Each time. It’s him. And—oh, oh they left me there, Jack! They—do you know—fuck, fuck—it’s not fair!”

“Hey, buddy?” says Jack. He breaks a wrist somewhere. He doesn’t know if it’s one of his or Tommy’s, but he hopes it will stop Death from grabbing either of them quite yet. He knows it won’t. “You’re gonna need to hurry up that personal revelation a bit. So, uh, I’ll hurry it up for you. Do you want to let them get away with that?” Come on, come on, come on— 

“No.”

Something sparks, and sparks, and sparks—

“No?”

“No, of course fucking not! Of course I don’t want to let them—I can’t just stay here after what they’ve—oh, I can’t keep coming back here but I definitely can’t just stay here after what they fucking did. I—you know things about revenge, right Jack?”

“Oh yeah,” says Jack, starting to kick his feet.

“Hahaha. Hahahahaha.” Jack thinks Tommy is crying. Jack is about to speak up again. Tommy really does need to hurry up the personal revelation, the sparking, the bellows, or Jack’s just gonna have to leave him here and go home empty-handed.

And then— 

Jack thinks that he can pinpoint the exact moment that Tommy breaks the same way Jack did.

“They _LEFT ME!”_ roars Tommy. “THEY DIDN’T FUCKING CARE! THEY LEFT ME! DREAM, DREAM, HE KILLED ME TO PROVE A FUCKING POINT! HE KILLED ME TO PROVE A POINT, AND THEN HE DID IT AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND—FUCK! FUCK! HAHAHA, THEY LEFT ME!” And it burns, the breaking. “I WAS _FUCKING_ HEALING! I WAS SAYING FUCKING GOODBYE! BUT I’M NOT READY TO SAY GOODBYE! I DON’T WANT TO! IT’S NOT FAIR, AND I’M NOT GOING TO!” And it forms a blaze, the breaking does. “THEY LEFT ME HERE. DREAM SENT ME HERE. THEY ALL SENT ME HERE! EVERYONE FUCKING SENT ME HERE!” And the shattering, shattering, shattering, it burns in Jack’s heart too, because there’s almost nothing Jack knows how to do like he’s alive anymore but anger, hard and cold.

Tommy opens his eyes, and they are white and orange and unalive and _burning._

“ _The people who sent me here deserve to die first,”_ snarls Tommy, and then he _shatters,_ and then he _burns._ “They won’t _leave me_ again. They won’t _send me here_ again. They won’t _control me again._ And they won’t look right past me! They won’t! I won’t let them have the chance. Never again. Do you hear me? NEVER AGAIN!”

The water drops, and the place they stand is dry. Tommy stands on his own, next to Jack, and they stop falling. ~~They~~ can’t touch them now. The fire burns, and burns, and burns bright, and it will keep burning, keep burning, keep burning in the shattered remains of two people who made mistakes but didn’t deserve the consequences.

Jack and Tommy stare at each other. Outside of the dry circle, ~~they’re~~ still watching the two of them, but ~~they~~ can’t reach them. Not when Tommy is newly burnt. Something smolders between them. The moment holds. It holds for a long time, two not-still-people staring at each other in the eyes and recognizing the bits that shattered in each other.

Tommy looks away first, but mostly just to look around. There is anger deep in his inhuman motions. “Where are we, Jack Manifold?”

“Well,” Jack says, “I always figured this was hell.”

Tommy snorts. “Oh, _this_ isn’t hell.”

“Concerning,” Jack says. “I think that might be what’s beneath the liquid, then, I guess. I remember a void and falling and shit, and not corpses and getting wet until I started to get real pissed. Up here, I think, is where all the lives we spent to get to hell in the first place are.”

Tommy glances at them. “Fucking morbid.”

“Agreed,” says Jack, all bared teeth and fire.

“What do you say we blow this place?” says Tommy. “Don’t know why, but I feel like I could fight god or something right now. I mean, not that I can’t always fight god, being a Big Man and all, but normally I don’t think I break out of hell.”

“First time for everything,” says Jack. “Even if it’s technically _my_ second.”

“Well, if we’re being all technical and shit, this’ll be my third time getting out of here, so I have you beat, Jack Manifold.” He pauses. “...how exactly do we leave? I reckon I can, leave and all. Leaving, I can feel it. I can do it now. Nothing’s holding me, or dragging me, or anything. I can leave. How, though?”

“What was that about beating me?” Jack says.

“I’ll have you know that our ability to leave isn’t what we’re competing over.”

The liquid starts leaking back into their circle. The first one of ~~them~~ to break the perimeter is one of the Tommys who has a caved-in head.

And it says: ~~You know better than anyone that you never really leave.~~

“Do they always do that?” Tommy asks conspiratorially.

“Unfortunately,” Jack says.

“Great. My Deaths are fucking assholes,” Tommy says. 

“Let’s go,” Jack says, and he grabs Tommy’s hand, and the fire burns and the circle breaks and ~~they~~ all reach for them both, and Jack feels the cold bone and flesh of one of his own burnt corpses grab his waist and hears ~~them~~ wailing, pleading, warning, whispering, tempting, but neither of them are going to bend, and everything burns and he’s furious, he hasn’t had his revenge yet, neither of them have had their revenge yet, and suddenly he knows exactly how to leave, so he takes a _step._

He looks down, and he sees that ~~they~~ are crying for him.

Then he looks up, and he does not look down again.

The world goes black and white. 

The world goes sepia.

And then— _color._

* * *

When Jack wakes up, they’re on the ground in Tommy’s shitty house. Tommy is already awake. He is sitting up, and he is holding his own wrist. His eyes are still burning.

“I don’t have a pulse,” Tommy says.

“Well, we are both dead.”

Outside of Tommy’s wooden door, they can see the flowers. In here, they sit on the checkerboard someone had made for some reason, and dirt occasionally drops from the ceiling, since no one’s been keeping up how it’s supposed to be packed. Other than whoever had done the floor, Jack thinks most people are too scared to go standing in someone’s grave. 

Jack had no fear of such a thing, but maybe that’s because he’s already dead. His heart only beats when something supernatural forces it to. By all rights, he should live in a grave or something. He should get on that. Tommy’s got a head start on him in that regard, with the way his house is basically a grave these days.

He stares at the ceiling again, and tries not to think of the Void. He doesn’t succeed. He’s never succeeded. Instead, he tends the fire in his heart. It is warm, and the guilt that had been smothering it is gone.

Good.

“What the fuck,” Tommy says, softly.

“Tell me about it,” Jack says.

“...you came for me,” Tommy says.

“Apparently not fast enough. Dream’s a bastard, isn’t he?” A pause. “Besides, I came for you because you used to be the thing keeping my fire burning. Really wanted to kill you and all that shit. Needed a way to keep burning even once I started feeling guilty for you being dead.”

Tommy nods slowly. “I did see the one of yours that I made. Hadn’t realized that was canon.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

They both stare at the ceiling a bit longer.

“I reckon,” Tommy starts, “that we’re both even then. You tried to kill me, I killed you. You rescued me, but it was ‘cause you’re all selfish and shit.”

“That sounds right to me,” Jack says. They both nod, and Jack realizes that that’s just the end of it, now. It’s nice.

Another long moment of silence between them.

“I’m really fucking angry,” Tommy says. “And every time I stop being angry and shit for too long, I start seeing shit. The shit from back there. The Void. Hell. The dead Tommys.”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “The dead yous keep following us forever, apparently.”

“I really just—did we just get so angry and, and vengeful and stuff that we walked out of hell?” Jack shrugs.

“I checked Philza’s books. I wanted to make sure that was really what I’d done. Turns out, there are all kinds of spirits and undead and shit that come back to life because they want revenge. They call ‘em revenants. Or, us. Call us that. I did a few sigils to grease the wheels too, but I think we’re both just too stubborn to stay dead, same way we’re too angry to stay alive.”

“Don’t think that’s a compliment, Jack.”

“It’s not.”

“At least I’m not a fucking zombie. Could you imagine?”

Jack snorts. “I mean, we’re basically…”

“No, shut up, I am cooler—I am cooler than a fucking zombie. I can like, run and shit, and I’m all _vengeful_ and _scary._ Zombies aren’t scary, they are annoying. And I’m—I might be annoying, but I’m also scary, right Jack? I’m terrifying.” Tommy looks down at his hands again. “...I’m terrified. What the shit, Jack. What the absolute fuck. Do you—you said you were there before. How long?”

Jack doesn’t want to think about it. “I didn’t count.”

“Schlatt made me count. I gave up after somethin’ like two months, though, especially since there were the gaps Dream had me revived for. Time’s all—how long has it actually been? Dream kept on saying he was only doing it for, for a bit, but even a bit is...” 

The fire burns in Jack’s chest. He thinks this one will always be smoldering. That is good for him, in the same way that it is bad for Tommy and worse for Dream. 

“A week,” Jack says. “A week since Sam told us you were dead.”

“Fuck, man. Fuck.” Tommy stares at his hands for a while longer, and then he looks up. “But Dream can’t… I can get out on my own now.” 

And then Tommy starts laughing. “I can—he can’t kill me for good, Jack Manifold, as long as I’m still goddamn pissed! As long as I’m a vengeful spirit, I’m already fucking dead! I can just climb back out whenever I want!” Tommy looks Jack in the eyes, and he is manic. “Jack, he can’t—he can’t send me back! I’m in control! Jack, I’m in control!” He’s cackling. “I might be a corpse and shit, but that just means no one can stop me! I can always try again, I’m, I’m, I’m in charge now, _bitch._ Hey, hey Dream, want me to come burn down your prison with you inside? Hey Dream, Dream, don’t you think you deserve that? I—I said I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy but you’re _more than that now,_ and, and— guess who doesn’t need your stupid fucking book anymore!”

Jack cackles in delight too. “Oh man, imagine finding out how to burn obsidian. No one would look away from us then!”

It’s probably a little deranged, the way they both start laughing over ways to kill a man, discussing whether or not their plan of _cook the prison alive and damn the people in it_ is plausible, but hey. They’re vengeful spirits of the dead, not human beings. They’ve both been to hell and come back. They’ve both seen things that minds aren’t really meant to see; both are still seeing things still that minds aren’t meant to see every time they see a shadow out of the corner of their eyes. Jack figures he gets to be a bit deranged, and from the sound of it, Tommy especially gets to be a little deranged.

They enjoy themselves for a bit, imagining complicated ways to get their revenge. Jack figures he ought to get the scheming music, actually. Tommy is… Tommy. Jack’s not sure if he likes him, but right now, he doesn’t dislike him, either, and Tommy’s the kind of person who would absolutely appreciate properly _being worse,_ Jack can feel it.

This is going to be the start of a beautiful partnership.

Eventually, they tire themselves out on scheming, a number of tentative and appropriately dramatic plans for Dream’s untimely demise in place, further plans to make sure the rest of the server appropriately knows their wrath, or at least their names, also placed in mind.

Jack remembers a promise, too, in that moment. The second fire.

“Do you want to tell Tubbo you’re alive?” Jack asks.

“Well,” Tommy says.

“Alive enough,” Jack amends.

“I reckon we should,” Tommy says, and his eyes soften a bit.

“Yeah,” Jack says. “He’s probably at the Bee and Boo.”

“What the fuck is a ‘Bee and Boo’?” asks Tommy.

“Ranboo and Tubbo also wanted to build a hotel across from ours.”

Tommy puffs out his chest. “Ours is so much better, you wouldn’t believe.”

“Yeah it is. ...I bet we should tell him to pretend you’re still dead. Do you think he’d be good at that?”

“He’d be terrible at it, but it would be funny,” Tommy says. “Come on, then. Let’s go home. You know what they say, right? Can’t keep a good man down! Or, or a bad one, actually. I bet it fits better for us that way. _You can’t keep a bad man down._ I’m gonna keep that.”

Tommy’s already walking down the prime path, and Jack is already following him, and ~~they~~ are already following them from the shadows, and the hotel is already in view before Jack processes properly that Tommy had called it home.

Huh.

He watches Tommy walk, not-quite-right. He sees, when Tommy talks, the death in his eyes. They go to knock on the door of Ranboo and Tubbo’s hotel, and Jack hears Tommy rambling about idiotic annoying nothings that make Jack sort of want to strangle him, and he realizes that he isn’t alone in this anymore.

It’s… something. Sad, probably, is how Jack ought to feel, if he weren’t selfish. He is, though. He keeps fires burning in his heart made of rage and the will to live and resolve, after all, even at the expense of people around him.

So, Jack is selfish.

He is not at peace. He cannot both be at peace and alive. Neither of them can.

But he can be, he thinks, strangely happy.

(And he keeps the fire burning as ~~they~~ watch in wait for the moment either of them forget to feed the fire kindling. He won’t, though. Because now? He has a new fire, and it is bright, and it stokes his too. Jack Manifold will _never fucking die._ )

**Author's Note:**

>  **bonus:**  
>  After there's a lot of crying, and Tommy yells about not being at the wedding, and promises are exchanged that they won't tell anyone Jack and Tommy are alive, the two of them leave for their hotel, and Ranboo and Tubbo are left to think alone.
> 
> "So," Ranboo says. "Uh, we both noticed there was something really off with both of them, right? Between me being whatever I am and you being a witch doctor, I know we both... felt it. Saw it."
> 
> "They'll tell us when they're ready," Tubbo says. "I'm just glad they're here at all."
> 
> "...yeah," says Ranboo, and they both file away "whatever inhuman thing Tommy and Jack made themselves" in the middle of their chests where they will not forget it but will not tell another soul and will not think about it too hard, because thinking too hard about it hurts. Then they go back to planning themselves. There is so much work to be done.
> 
> ===
> 
> so, first: i was not the first person to write jack manifold crawling out of hell with tommy! we went very different directions with it and i think both started writing it independently, but i fucking ADORE this fic, so here's a link to the other 'jack manifold drags tommy out of hell' fic i know about, and please enjoy it: [everything i wanted by eleon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29832762/chapters/73402935)  
>    
> i should go back to only writing for canons that have been complete since 2008, i was possessed to write this in three days flat and i STILL had to do some wild gymnastics to make it slot into canon even a little bit (even considering i always knew it would be at least a bit au). still, i'm proud of this; the afterlife concept here especially is something that i am REALLY GLAD I DID, because MAN is it cool. hopefully i did the horror writing alright. writing for horror is weird and difficult. my main goals were that the characters felt right and that the death and afterlife scenes were appropriately intense, surreal, and scary.
> 
> i have no plans on a sequel for this or anything, so if anyone else wants to play with the concept of tommy and jack as revenants or the afterlife concept with the dead past canon lives, you have my total blessing to use them wherever and however you would like.  
> hope you liked it!


End file.
